4th NovAliX Conference
Biophysics in Drug Discovery 2017

For the fourth time, NovAliX is organising its Biophysics in Drug Discovery Conference. This new edition will cover current hot topics including integral membrane proteins (Special Focus of the Conference).

As last year, the venue will be the Hilton Strasbourg.

The use of biophysical methods in drug discovery is rapidly increasing and the field is in constant evolution, as documented in a recent article: "Biophysics in drug discovery: impact, challenges and opportunities." Renaud JP, Chung CW, Danielson UH, Egner U, Hennig M, Hubbard RE, Nar H. Nat. Rev. Drug Discov. 2016 Oct; 15(10): 679-698 (see comment here). Many pharmaceutical companies have set up in-house biophysical platforms to speed up the target-to-candidate process and improve the quality of small-molecule therapeutics through a better understanding of their interactions with their targets. Academic labs involved in early-stage drug discovery also heavily rely on biophysical techniques.

The fourth edition of the conference intends again to bring together biophysicists and medicinal chemists, the synergy between their disciplines being key to deliver better drugs on a shorter timeline.

This year, the Scientific Programme will include the following sessions :

• Antibodies and Relatives [antibody fragments, minibodies, nanobodies, bi- or tri-specific antibodies, ADCs, hybrid Ab-targeted protein fusions, alternate scaffolds and alternate scaffold conjugates (affinity drug conjugates), ...]
• Biophysical Techniques for the Study of Integral Membrane Proteins (GPCRs, Ion Channels, Transporters and others)
• Detecting Allosteric Effectors
• Hot Topics
• IDPs (Intrinsically Disordered Proteins) and the Dark Proteome
• Recent Advances in FBDD [including challenging targets and HTS - FBS (fragment-based screening) combinations]
• Recent Advances in NMR [including NMR as a (ligand co-)structure determination technology]

We are pleased to announce the following Keynote Lectures: Alain Beck (Pierre Fabre, France), Jean-Pierre Changeux (Collège de France & Institut Pasteur, France) and Dan Erlanson (Carmot Therapeutics, United States).

As for the previous editions, the Scientific Programme will be completed by Exhibitor short presentations, a Poster Session and a Commercial Exhibition.